Women at the face of crisis must not be ignored

Robin Muchetu, Senior Reporter
WOMEN Affairs, Community, Small and Medium Enterprise Development Minister Dr Sithembiso Nyoni has stressed the dilemma women face in trying to deal with humanitarian crises such as pandemics and war.

Dr Nyoni was addressing a panel of delegates under the Commission on the Status of Women on the topic; Learning from grassroots women peacebuilders; Improving women’s voices in decision making, leadership, and the peacebuilding agenda.

“Allow me to congratulate the Republic of Tanzania and Africa at large for the appointment of President Her Excellency Madam Samia Saluhu Hassan, this is indeed a key milestone advancing gender equality and empowerment of women in Africa. Women’s full and effective participation in matters that affect them is a key cornerstone of good governance and management of public affairs.

“Women and girls are disproportionately affected by humanitarian crises either emanating from natural causes, wars and other means. Women are often at the receiving end of consequences emanating from such a crisis.

Women are important agents for creating stability in the lives of their families and promoting reconciliation and peace even in very difficult and traumatising situations. Yet their involvement in decision making in peace and security remains very low,” she said.

Dr Nyoni said women have proved to be worth their salt as seen in nations where they left footprints that will forever be recognised and remembered for their roles during a crisis.

“The exemplary leadership by women in crises situations has now been written with indelible ink in the global response to Covid-19 pandemic in the following countries: Germany, Taiwan, Iceland, New Zealand, Finland, Norway and Denmark. Covid-19 has threatened to reverse the gender equality gain accrued over the years.

Increasingly due to the Covid-19 regulations to contain the pandemic more and more women have been shaded by the lockdown as caregivers and thereby reinforcing the already existing gender stereotypes,” she said.

Dr Nyoni highlighted that due to some of the regulations implemented to contain the pandemic, cases of domestic violence especially, have spiked and even more subtle dimensions of violence were experienced, and whose consequences have been potential to limit women’s full and effective participation in decision making.

The participation of women in finding solutions to issues of gender inequality and limited representation in positions of power has also remained a challenge.

“We often have heard the saying that, ‘nothing for us without us’, in light of this I want to emphasise that there cannot be lasting peace without the participation of the majority of the affected.

We note here that while Africa is trying to include women in peace processes, slow ratification and development of action plans on Resolution 1325 shows that we are far off the mark. As we speak, we however, applaud Sadc through the organ on politics and defence for taking Gender-Based Violence as a security issue,” she added.

The minister said domestic violence threatens peace, development and growth at a personal level and also for the community at large. Women’s full and effective participation must be promoted in leadership and decision making for Covid-19 responses and recovery. Furthermore, she said gender equality must be fully legislated.

“There is a need to legislate gender equality. The gender equality agenda will remain rhetoric unless it is legislated.

There is need to come up with quotas for women in decision-making positions in the peace and security architecture.

Issues of gender equality must be embedded into the national constitution. Further, through the same constitution a National Peace and Recreational Commission is in place to facilitate peace and security processes in the country and part of the mandate of the commission is to mainstream gender issues in all peace processes,” she noted. — @NyembeziMu